You Can't Be Seventeen Forever
by tommyxloser
Summary: After fifty years apart, Bella’s new sense of self could change everything in the relationship that she once had with Edward. Reunited doesn’t necessarily mean reconciled. New Moon AU
1. Prologue

**Title:** You Won't Be Seventeen Forever

**Rating:** T (for now)

**Short Summary: **Post-New Moon-AU— 50 years after he left her, could Bella really be standing feet away from him in a high school parking lot? Could she possibly still love him? Or will they start over new, because she has changed so much since becoming a vampire? He has to fall in love with the new Bella; including the mistakes she had made in the past 50 years.

**In-depth Summary:**

When Isabella Swan became a vampire, she had been asking for it for months. She had wanted to be one as desperately as anyone could want anything. But the only problem was that the thing she wanted even more than to be a vampire no longer wanted her. Edward had left her, claiming indifference, so why would she still want to be a vampire? But she got her wish anyways. She became what she had begged him to make her. But she must deal with it alone; solitary against the temptations of the Volturi, human blood, and even the thought of possibly letting herself love someone else; _anyone_ else.

Until she sees him in that damn parking lot.

When he reappears in her life at the most unexpected moment, entangling himself in the carefully spun web of her lies, she realizes that she is not the same person that he left 50 years before. She was not the person that had loved him, even if the memory of the feeling still consumed her.

**Warnings:** Alternate Universe, All Vampire, Slight OOC, and language.

And a special thanks to my beta **freakyhazeleyes** for humoring me in my played-out idea. :)

* * *

Edward Cullen stepped from the warm confines of his small silver car and out into the chilled October air of urban Maine.

He looked around him instinctively, sizing up his surroundings the way any good predator would.

High schools all seemed the same to him though. They all seemed to encompass the vision of what he also thought an insane asylum might look like from the outside. He had only ever voiced this aloud once, and had instantly regretted it at the sight of his sister's face. But the way the sad red bricks sat atop one another to form the pathetic box of a building that housed the community's hope for the intellect of their children made him sad.

He had seen too many of these buildings fail in their mission of educating their inhabitants. High school kids could just be so idiotic. A brick structure thrown together when the school district began to overflow with students would not change that.

Alice came up beside him, resting a reassuring hand on his arm, and smiling appraisingly at the school. But as if she had seen a flash of something interesting whiz by her, she snapped her head in the opposite direction, towards a small group of congregated teenagers. She sniffed interestedly, her eyes scrunching at the sides in concentration.

He instinctively snapped his head towards his sister's distraction.

A familiar scent met his tongue, carried by the wind. It was oddly familiar, yet so different than he remembered. He could still taste the scent of her strawberry shampoo mixed with the dewy mist of the rain in their meadow, and the way she would always smell more like freesias when she was angry, when her adrenaline was pumping faster.

He stared, too curious to ignore it, and froze in his spot.

He saw the curve of her back before anything else. Her hair looked exactly as he remembered, still soft and wavy, down only a few inches past her shoulder blades. He could imagine himself burying his nose in it the way he used to, just taking in every scent of her.

But he couldn't be _sure_.

She seemed the same; yet somehow drastically different. She held herself up straighter, she looked lighter on her feet, she was more confident with her books balanced on her hip than he had remembered, she hugged a girl standing beside her, and the sight of her features in profile made his dead heart restart.

He would recognize her anywhere. It had to be her. He had to be dreaming, no matter the improbability of him actually sleeping. He had been fantasizing about her for 50 years; but never had he had hallucinations of her before. It _had_ to be her. There was no denying that.

But how could it be?

It was mathematically, physically, and scientifically impossible. She should have been well into her sixties by now, with a comfortable rocking chair swaying in the breeze on her front porch, a wrinkled old man at her side, holding tightly to her hand, and several grandchildren running around them, screaming for their attention.

That was the life he had wanted for her. He had given up his own happiness, his own love and joy, so that she could be that person, that unthinkably normal and carefree person.

And just as he had decided on the impossibility of her presence, the first sounds of her melodic voice drifted on the wind, making it easy for his heightened hearing to understand her saying "Charlie's out of town as usual". He could almost hear her smile from across the parking lot filled with teenagers. He remembered her smile well, and the way it floated in the air and mixed with the familiar sound of her voice and the smell of her signature strawberry shampoo made him smile instinctively.

Her voice was so familiar to him, the sunny inflection at the end as she shared her private joke with her friends, and the loving indifference she used at the mention of her father; yet so foreign. She had experienced things that had made her voice deepen in tone in wisdom. And also something else. It was the way she pronounced the name. Her syllables shimmied in some places, and were in a way that he had become accustomed to hearing in Europeans that did not have a full grasp of the English language, making her pronounce her father's name _Shar-lee_.

But even if the sound of her voice had not convinced him of her existence, in the solid and realistic way he had only ever hoped for, the overwhelming smell of freesias and strawberries engulfed him. He closed his eyes to the scent, tasting its familiarity and foreignness at the same time.

And he knew.

Isabella Marie Swan had returned to his life.

But he would not give her up as easily this time.

She was no longer a soap bubble, so easily breakable.


	2. Thinking of You

**Note: In the prologue I said that they were in Maine. It was overlooked in my own editing. I'd like to say that this story is set in a town about an hour outside Vancouver called Abbotsford. I've never personally been there, but I'm OCD, and I felt like they had to live somewhere near a large forest. **

_I recall a long farewell and a time to choose  
__So we part like rivers baby, yeah like rivers do  
__But I still talk about you though and wonder  
__How it is your life will unfold _

_Show me what it looks like  
__Outside your window at twilight  
__Show me what it looks like _

_I recall driving home, this ain't gonna hit me till God knows when  
__You know I feel it in my bones and I wear it on my skin  
__But there ain't no use in right or wrong  
__A heart must go where it belongs  
__**-Thriving Ivory "Twilight"**_

_Beep Beep Beep Beeep Beeeeeeep. _

I sighed deeply, taking in the overwhelming dewy smells of the morning that crept in around me. The annoyingly shrill notes of my alarm clock felt as if it were placed flush against my ear, magnified by my senses.

For the past several months, a pastime I had created for myself was to try and find different songs or tempos camouflaged within the shrill screaming of beeps. It was my own personal version of _'Where's Waldo?'_ So far I had found several hard rock songs, and one of the more morbid pieces by Beethoven.

I sighed, unable to hear anything beyond the mundanely obvious this morning, and swung my legs from my mattress. I shivered at the chill that lingered around me. Through the night I would let wool blankets and comforters block me from the surrounding temperature. But the moment that I released myself from their warming grasp, I was subjected to my own curse of chill again.

I stubbed my toe on the leg of my four-poster bed on the way to the bathroom, and I cursed aloud. It didn't hurt, but a wave of shame slipped through me. _I'm even a clumsy vampire!_ I bent to inspect the wood that I had accidentally stubbed, and sighed when I saw the slight splintering that my foot had caused.

I stripped off my clothes in a Hansel and Gretel-like trail towards the shower, only stopping to turn my stereo onto full blast before entering the bathroom. I let the water run hot before I stepped in and began to scrub my body and wash through the tangled mess of hair on the top of my head.

I let the scent and feel of the shampoo underneath my fingertips engulf my senses. I always liked to revel in the feel of the steaming water while taking a shower. It was the benefit of acting so human. I could take a bath or a shower, and let the heat that I could never feel in my skin again, overpower me.

After all, I didn't exactly _need_ to shower; just as I did not need to brush my teeth, wear deodorant, or paint my nails. But they were human things that I did out of habit and pleasure. The taste of toothpaste on my tongue would make me feel nauseous sometimes, and deodorant sometimes caked on my skin, but I never stopped doing it. It was my "human time".

And for those few moments, as the water rolled across my marble skin like a raindrop would on a window pane, I felt warm. I understood what he had once told me about my warmth feeling better than I could have ever imagined. Warmth was as much a drug to me as anyone's flesh had ever been. I had never craved a human's blood as much I had craved their warmth.

When the water heater seemed to have had its limit for the day, I finally shut the water off at the knob, and stepped from the tub into the cold air, my skin instantly freezing over again.

I wrapped myself in a soft towel, letting myself become accustomed to the chill again. I pulled another towel from the rack and ran it through my hair, squeezing the excess water out with my fingers. It was an inevitability that I needed to dry my hair as quickly as possible, followed by a little work with the heat of the hairdryer. It had nothing to do with vanity though. I had an experience several years before where the tips of my hair had actually turned into small crystals of ice from my own body temperature. I never wanted to have to deal with that ever again.

I chose my clothes as carelessly as any other day, a pair of jeans and a thin fitted cornflower blue shirt, and headed through the house towards the attached garage. I didn't particularly like to spend time in my house; it reminded me of how alone I really was. I preferred to spend time at friend's houses, or at any place where I knew plenty of humans would be: the mall, a coffee shop where I could pretend to choke down whatever frappe-latte-chino was most popular that day, or even at school.

I was not as anxious or nervous in a high school as I remembered being all those years ago in Forks. No, now my excitement and willingness to arrive early before my classes was more due to anticipation than I had ever thought possible before. I _liked_ school now, however inconceivable it sounded. And I had plenty of practice.

The only times I had been excited to arrive early to school before was when _he_ had been in my life. I had always longed to make any sort of contact to him, and school was when we had the most time to be together without worrying about Charlie. We were never interrupted from our world of undying teenage romance at school. I remembered those days fondly, knowing that the happiness that so thoroughly consumed me then was the best I would ever feel in this life.

But I had learned by now, finally, 50 years later, that my happiness should have never been wagered so heavily on his presence. It was very adolescent of me to believe so thoroughly in him. I had read too many romance novels, and I believed everything I felt and heard without question.

I should have asked more questions.

I should have relied more on my common sense than on what I had read or seen in movies. I should have listened to my mother more when she told me about the inconvenience and trauma of falling in love at such a young age.

But I didn't.

And here I am.

Completely alone as the creature he had refused to make me.

But there was a time not too long ago when I had not been so alone. Only eight years before I had been to the point where I felt I had started to develop my own family. I had been truly happy, joyous even. But it was short lived. I could never stay with that family and be able to look at myself in the mirror for eternity.

My first vampire friend after I had joined their secret ranks had been Clothilde, a little over twenty-five years before. She was originally from Paris, but had somehow found herself in the same dank bar as me one Saturday night in early September when I was embarking on my third attempt at high school. She was my first real companion since changing. She was not my first friend, but she was the first one to hold tight to me. She needed me just as desperately as I needed her. We needed one another to make our deception work. We needed each other to stay sane. We needed each other just so we could have someone else to confide our secrets to; someone that knew the full and absolute truth.

We had clung to one-another with an iron grip, teaching each other things we hadn't realized we didn't know, and guiding each other to truly be better people; better as either a vampire or a human. She taught me to speak French, and how to dress, and I taught her how to survive without being a murderer. We learned to laugh together and how to let our special talents and circumstances not mar our existence.

She was easily accepted as my elder sister by anyone that asked. It was probably no large feat to believe that she was my legal guardian; she took care of me in ways that no one ever had before. Not even my real mother.

She reminded me so amazingly of Esme. Clothide was _my_ Esme. She was my immortal mother.

Until we reached our twenty year mark.

It was like the breaking up of a loving marriage. We couldn't explain it, but we fell apart. All of a sudden, after twenty years, we realized that we didn't want the same things out of life. I wanted to be as normal and human as possible in my situation, and she didn't see the draw in that anymore.

She had fallen in love, and she refused to give it up. I didn't blame her.

So I left.

But Clothilde was who everyone in Abbotsford understood to be my mother. She was who came around every now and then to check up on me. She was really the only person in the world who cared enough to show up once a month or so to make an appearance as my guardian and generally make sure I was alright.

And I still loved her. It was impossible not to. She had experienced things with me that no one else had. She had picked out the dress for the first date I had gone on after Edward. She had been there when I had been awarded my diploma from Juilliard. She had been there for each diploma I had received since meeting her, really. She had seen me fall to pieces the first time I tasted human blood. She had been the person to convince me not to kill myself. She had been the one I confided my secrets in. She was the one to tell me that I could live my life without her. She believed in me enough to believe that I could.

I couldn't stop loving her anymore than I could have stopped loving Renee or Charlie.

Or Edward.

They were people I would love no matter how much time or distance elapsed, simply because they were such large parts of my life; what it was, and what it had become. Such a large part of who I was.

So instead of wallowing in self pity on the short ride to the high school, I let my favorite song roll through the speakers of my car and engulf me in its strumming beats. It had an irony to it that I appreciated, but none of my human friends ever could. _Seventeen Forever_ by Metro Station was released in 2008, officially making it "of our grandparents' generation". Little did they know that I was a member of said generation.

They would put in a request for me to see the school shrink if I told them that I had celebrated my 64th birthday the previous September.

But of course none of my classmates would understand that I was perpetually trapped between the ages of 16 and 25. They would never understand the way I had been forced to abandon my life, friends, and occasionally my name, so that I could keep the secret of my kind. They loved to believe that the fact that we were teenagers gave us exemption from any sort of true trauma.

I would always be a teenager. At least physically. But the emotional trauma of my life had already taken a heavy toll.

As I pulled into the parking lot of Aldergrove Community Secondary School, the sight and sounds of the thousand or so typical teenagers loitering around the parking lot made a smile come to my face. I loved the sight of all these people after leaving the silence and solitude of my house. I loved the static of my fellow students that clogged my ears during the days.

I parked in the spot that seemed to have become mine over the past month or so, directly in front of the flag pole, and searched the crowds for the cluster of most familiar and friendly faces in the throngs.

Aldergrove was a typical high school; jocks and groupies were off to the left, closest to the quad so that they could toss around their seasonal sports ball, people with skateboards were off to the furthest side of the parking lot, hoping not to be run over as they attempted their tricks, the most intellectually devoted were either already inside, or were spread out across the grass with a novel or textbook in front of them, drama and student government kids usually stayed closest to the doors, ready to run when the warning bell rang, and loners made themselves scarce, usually not arriving until they were almost tardy. I wouldn't say that there were defined "cliques" per se, but there were definitely lines. Everyone knew where they stood. There were just some people that couldn't cross the great divide, while others roamed freely.

I remembered when I had been one of those loners. I had dealt with the title for years before I started to actually become friendly with humans. I had been too afraid of myself to even attempt socializing for the first twenty-odd years of my vampiric existence. I had kept completely to myself. I read, listened to music, learned to play the piano, learned to speak Italian, started running for fun, and kept obsessive journals on everything that occurred in my life. It was freeing to be so solitarily dependant.

But it was lonely. And I'd never pick it over the sociality that I had developed after loosing Clothilde. I had let myself free after leaving her. I let myself believe that no matter what the temptation, I would be able to live as normally as was possible. I made friends, both vampires and humans, I went on dates, and I had humans in my home.

I even started to believe I could live without _him_.

I pulled myself up and out of my BMW, and was careful to close the door softly. I had learned my lesson in delicacy long ago. I had accidentally made a car door fall off once, and it had not been easy to explain to the insurance company how it had happened. I couldn't afford any more accidents like that.

And besides that, I actually liked this car. Once your life came to a point where your usual pastimes seem mundane, your brain will begin to latch on to new things. Cars were one of those things for me.

When my friends realized that I had arrived, two of the girls started waving me over frantically, their arms flying around above their heads to try and grab my attention. They probably got the attention of a few airliners too.

Blair Weston, Ava Conrad, Ethan Wilder, Liam Sterling, Hailey Hendrix, and Smith Trainer (unfortunately named after the character from Sex and the City) were the primary members of my group of friends. They were very similar to the group of friends that Jessica Stanley had tried to get me to join at Forks High School, but I had not been ready for that brand of superficial friendship then.

I pulled Blair into a greeting hug when I was near enough to her, and I let the smell of her blood beneath her skin attack my senses. I let the venom pool in my mouth, but quickly forced it to burn down my throat. It was the only sign of myself that I afforded during the day.

I somehow never let the smell of human blood affect me. I could handle it as long as I hunted once a week. I couldn't explain it, but the scent of it just felt like some kind of odd perfume in the air instead of the wicked temptation that Edward and Jasper had always made it seem.

It was like passing a bakery and not ducking in to buy something. I could deal with that. I was on a perpetual diet.

"Bella, Sam and I were talking about what we were going to do on Friday. Do you have any ideas?" Blair asked, pointing her thumb over her shoulder to her burly boyfriend talking to his fellow jocks in their own huddle a few yards away. I could hear that they were openly discussing and comparing Blair and Hailey's asses. I mentally grimaced at the hormones that ran through their bloodstreams.

I had always marveled at how little had changed since my first time in high school. Dating was still one of the most important things in the world, followed by where the next beer would be supplied, and the easiest way to cheat on a calculus test. Really, the only thing that had changed was me. Now I willingly participated in such conversations, secretly finding them hilarious.

"Charlie's out of town as usual." I shrugged in indifference. Blair was a statuesque blonde that I had, on more than one occasion, accidentally called Rosalie. She was straight off of an 80's catwalk, and she was one of the only people I knew that could pull off wearing heels to school without looking like a tool. "So I guess we could go to my house if you want."

"I was thinking more like going and doing something. Maybe we could go into Vancouver for a movie or something." Her voice sounded pleading, and I imagined that she was thinking of adding, "or else I'm going to die" to her statement.

"I guess we could…" A shiver rolled through my granite body, and I froze. The single words hung in the thick smoggy air around me as I fell silent halfway through my invitation. The shock and horror mixed within my brain, causing my mind to freeze. The voice was so soft and silky, inviting, yet still so completely disgruntled that I couldn't help but wonder what could possibly be happening.

Alice's soft, musical voice broke through the buzz of the rowdy teenagers in the high school parking lot, and made me shiver. "How could I have not seen _this_?"

* * *

**Author's Note:** This chapter is named after the song by Katy Perry. I hated it when this song, and the artist, went main-stream. I liked keeping Katy in my own obscure musical world. But alas, her awesomeness has been shown to the world. Most of my chapters will be named after songs taht have inspired them. I also have a playlist posted on my bio that has all the songs that most inspire this story

I'm trying my hardest not to over-angst this story. It's a hard task though, and this chapter was definitely the hardest of all of the chapters I have been working on. I have large chunks of this story up to chapter six already done, and it's simply connecting them together that take the most time. And the fact that I hate everything about this chapter makes it even worse. I just grinned and bore it when I sent it to my beta, the amazing and patient **freakyhazeleyes**. And I also want to send a very special thanks to **Adabella Cullen**, who tonight has made my warm and fuzzies go into over-load. She was the only person to review on my prologue, and I will be infinitely grateful to her for that forever, not to mention the substantial boost to my ego she has given to me tonight, when I felt like I wanted to kill myself over this chapter and how dissappointed I was in it. And she probably doesn't even realize she's done it. :)

xox Keira

_P.S._ Clothilde is a French name meaning "famous battle". It is pronounced either "Clo-thil-d" or "Clo-thil-da" depending on your origins. I like it either way really. I thought it was appropriate in a way.


	3. The Sound of Silence

**Disclaimer:** I own an SAT Prep book, a dry erase board that won't erase, Alice bands that have bows on them, a clock that is telling me that it's 5 o'clock in the morning, and a beautiful poster of Nice, France. I do not own Twilight.

_I see your face in my mind as I drive away,  
_'_Cause none of us thought it was gonna end that way.  
__People are people,  
__And sometimes we change our minds.  
__But it's killing me to see you go after all this time._

_Music starts playin' like the end of a sad movie,  
__It's the kinda ending you don't really wanna see.  
__Cause it's tragedy and it'll only bring you down,  
__Now I don't know what to be without you around._

_And we know it's never simple, never easy.  
__Never a clean break, no one here to save me.  
__You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand,  
__And I can't,  
__Breathe, without you,  
__But I have to,  
__Breathe,  
__Without you, But I have to.  
__**-Taylor Swift "Breathe"**_

My mouth fell open with the shock of the disembodied voice. The melodic sound hung in the air around me, unheard by any of my nearest neighbors. My mouth hung open like a dysfunctional trap door, wide enough for a plethora of flying insects to enter. And also wide enough for the smell to touch my tongue.

My breath rushed from my lungs, kicking out the unneeded oxygen, and letting the scent soak in to every taste bud on my tongue. It was the softest kind of muted musk that I had ever smelt. It was as if I had smelt it in a dream long ago, one I didn't realize that I remembered, and the familiarity made my stomach fly up into my throat. I could not believe it.

But even though I didn't necessarily recognize the scent, I knew whom it belonged to, and it made my unnecessary breath hitch. I had smelt vampires before, their smooth, impossibly perfect scent being the easiest of all species to identify; but the small hint of cedar mixed with the brassy smell of the blood they drank was what gave away the scent of a vegetarian. Clothilde had been the only one I had actually smelt it on before.

But no one else's scent could throw me so thoroughly into the pits of love and lust the way that _his_ did. His scent was so different from the others. It was as if my nose knew how much I loved him.

So, I did the only thing I thought seemed sensible.

I ran.

Not even bothering to give any kind of explanation to my to my friends, I ran as fast as I humanly could to my car, throwing myself into the drivers seat with a force that made the metal underneath give a slight _pop_. I felt my muscles protest to the speed I was moving. My self-preservation instincts were telling me to run as fast as I could, never looking back, and the speed I used was far too slow. I should have sprinted, leaving only a flash of color in my wake.

I didn't stop to examine my prized car. I didn't stop to be sure I gripped the handle gently. I didn't even stop to let myself breathe. I forced my key into the ignition, not even bothering to check to make sure that it was the correct one. I pushed it harder than I had intended to, forcibly molding the metal to fit the ignition, and part of my key ring splintered off into my hand.

I ignored the fragments of metal dust, wiping them off of my hand on my jeans, and throwing the car into reverse out of my parking spot. I caught a flash of platinum blonde hair, and my breathing picked up, letting the leathery scent of my car engulf every sense I had. I was gasping for unnecessary air, and shaking with an emotion that I could not properly place. Fear, anger, excitement, and lust were the front-runners, but I could not be certain of any of their accuracy.

I almost hit a pedestrian on the way to the street, but I barely cringed. The last thing I heard before tuning out of the real world as I turned out of the high school parking lot was the sound of about a dozen voices yelling "Bella!"

My mind's voices all screamed above one another as I careened down the highway towards my house. I wondered if any of them would follow me, and I found myself looking out of my rearview mirror more often then normal. My hands clenched the steering wheel harder than I had ever done before, and I feared for its safety.

But only when I was halfway back to my house did I realize that I had never actually seen them. The flash of blonde hair I had seen could have belonged to anyone. Blair, possibly. It could have easily been someone else. Anyone else. There was no reason for me to believe it was Rosalie.

Except Alice's voice, that is. Her voice was too unique, too bell-like, too perfect, too easily recognizable, too… everything. Alice's voice personified the perfection that vampires possessed to lure in their prey. No human could ever have such a voice. It would be too cruel to the rest of the race.

But I had been too afraid and confused to turn my head even a millimeter in the direction that I had heard the voice or smelt the smell from. I was afraid to know whether or not I was insane. I wouldn't have been able to see them without falling apart.

I pictured them though. I remembered Alice's smile, and the way she practically vibrated from the intensity of her desire to reach the reality of every vision she saw. I saw Rosalie's hair, the way it personified everything of the perfection that she was, from the tips of her perfectly manicured fingers to the toes of her Prada pumps. I saw Jaspers scars, the small one on his forehead that was so faint, and yet so prominent against his already incomprehensible pallor, and the way his face had twisted into that painful scowl whenever he was near me. _That wouldn't be a problem anymore_, I thought sardonically. I remembered Emmett's jokes, and the way they made the air around him smile with him as he laughed. I saw Carlisle's kind smile and understanding eyes, and Esme's motherly need to hug you in your pain. I longed for that hug with the most intense form of nostalgia. I could feel the ghost of her arms engulfing me as I pulled my car into my garage.

I looked to myself in the rearview mirror, my eyes fogged with moisture-less pain and confusion.

And then I thought of Edward. Edward's… Just. Edward. Everything about him. His touch. His laugh. His lopsided smirk. His perception of his own perfection. His eyes and the emotions they portrayed. His voice. His inner turmoil.

And I thought of the way I had left my friends so coldly. They didn't deserve that. They had been nothing but good and caring towards me. They shouldn't be punished because my demons, in every sense of the word, had reappeared to wreak havoc on my life, including their involvement in it.

I'd just have to pass it off as cramps or something the next day. It was a simple enough excuse, and no one would ever question it. I knew as I stared at myself in the mirror, my lips set in a suborn line, that I would return to school the next day. I would not run the way that they had. I would face them. I would look each of them in the eyes, tell them of the pain that they had caused me, and then leave before they knew the extent of how much of that pain was caused because I had loved them so much. Loved _him_ so much.

But when seven rolled around the next morning, I couldn't pull myself out of bed. I let the alarm blare in my ear for a full hour, finding a Bach composition to add to my list of hidden songs.

I lay in bed, wishing for the sleep that I knew would never come, and recounted every memory I had of the Cullen family. I didn't need to be specific in my thoughts; only the vague idea of their family in my foggy memories could cause the sort of coma that paralyzed me for days.

I only left my house once in seven days, to go hunting. It was the only truly vital thing that could draw me from my home. Hunting was a necessity for me to be anywhere, even in my own home. The thirstier I got, the easier it was to smell the blood of my neighbors. And as my thirst mixed with their scents, I thought of things that I instantly regretted.

I would not let myself become that person.

Again.

Blair called every day before and after school to see if I was feeling better and whether or not I was going to make an appearance. She had wanted to come over several times, but I quickly brushed her off, saying that the doctor thought I was too contagious. And if I wanted to really split hairs, I had received my medical license 27 years ago, and I could give myself any diagnosis I pleased. I decided on mononucleosis. It was simple, concise, and required no questions.

But when Monday rolled around, the week mark since I had heard Alice, a week since I had my very public shutdown of my nerves, I decided that I was done hiding.

I dressed more calculatingly than I had in years, careful to choose my favorite pair of jeans and one of the many shirts that Clothilde had insisted upon me buying when we were living in Paris several years before. I meticulously styled my hair, using every styling tool that I had collected at Clothilde's insistence over the years.

I knew that I needed to be completely confidant in every superficial way if I were to fake my mental confidence.

If I hadn't been hallucinating, that is.

Blair hadn't mentioned any new students, and she was a usually very forthcoming with such gossip. There was a definite possibility that I had just temporarily lost my sanity for those few minutes. After all, I believed I was a vampire. Didn't that constitute insanity in most places in the world?

As I attempted to curl my hair with unusually shaky hands, something I hadn't done since my commencement from Cambridge three years before, I searched my own eyes in the mirror. I couldn't even read my own thoughts. All I saw was the amber eyes of the naïve teenage girl that I had once been. I had been transported back in time in more ways than once in the past week. I felt like the same girl who had shyly but determinedly loved him.

And, worst of all, I felt susceptible to it happening again.

I shook my head, carefully placing the curling iron back on the bathroom counter, and chastised myself. _You know how it works Bella. You've seen it happen time after time. You fell in love with his species, not him. You fell in love with his magic._ It was easy to convince myself of this. More than one stranger on the sidewalk had walked up to me and proclaimed their undying love. Vampires were easy to fall in love with. Everything about them made them seem godly. Even people with attitudes like the one that Rosalie had displayed to me would be considered perfect because of all of their superficially perfect qualities. Our voices, our smells, and our appearance; It all made us seem so… lovable.

But it was all an illusion. I knew that Edward had to have been one of those illusions.

He had loved me for my scent, the temptation of killing me; and I had loved him

It was the only explanation for why I could have so easily fallen so wholeheartedly in love with him. It had been too easy, at least the falling part had been. The rest was much more complicated.

I had decided on my plan of action when I pulled my car into its usual spot in the parking lot. Everything was exactly the same as it had been the previous Monday. It was eerie. I saw that my friends were already heading towards me, some looking happy to see me after so long, and one looking frighteningly determined in her decision to let me have it.

Blair pulled the passenger door open haughtily, throwing herself down into the seat and crossing her arms so I knew I had not been forgiven for my absence and the mystery surrounding it. She was mad that I had blown her off when she had offered to come over and watch over me.

I rolled my eyes and turned up the volume on my stereo, letting Three Days Grace tell me of the animals that they had become. _Oh, if they only knew!_

"God! How do you listen to this crap Bella?" She punched the power button with her perfectly manicured index finger, and fell back into the plush leather seat with a delicate _harrumph_.

"At least I don't fawn over a weird looking little man wearing a leather jumpsuit and making the speedboat sound with his lips," I prodded back, referring to the latest teen sensation on the airwaves, and adding an eye roll.

And then I smelt them again. A slight, barely-noticeable gust of wind brought the sweetest scent of cedar and palatable blood into the car and through my nostrils. I stiffened in my seat, my jaw snapping shut and my teeth grinding together in frustration.

Luke's fingers snapped in front of my eyes, and it was more the sound than the sight that snapped me from my own head. I hadn't even realized that he stood at my opened car door. I forced myself from my own tangled mind and tried to focus on my surroundings, letting the scent fade into the background. I willed myself to become detached from myself. I had to see everything as a third party right now, otherwise I would go insane. I couldn't let myself feel the way I knew I felt. I had to let the excitement and eagerness quell inside me before I joined the human world.

"Don't be an idiot, Edward." I shuddered. The sound of Rosalie's angered voice as the car came into the parking lot. The mere sound of his name was enough to make my body become completely alert.

In a fit of insanity I threw myself hastily out of the car, barely even stopping to grab my bag with my books in it over my shoulder as I half crouching in my attempt to stealthily move from one end of the parking lot towards the courtyard at the other end. I could hear my friends following behind me, their steady steps and hasty questions of my sanity reaching my ears as I tried to keep out of sight.

I kept my eyes on the silver car as it easily came to a stop in a spot near the edge of the lot. It was amazing how close this vehicle resembled the Volvo. I saw pictures and memories replay themselves within my minds eyes like an old projector as I watched him turn slightly in his seat to face his siblings in the back of the car.

There were two memories that were most prominent when I thought of that damned silver Volvo: the day he had saved me in Port Angeles and I had confirmed my suspicions of his supernatural species; and the day of my 18th birthday as he drove me home. It seemed like everything came back to that day. In my mind it was the day that he stopped loving me.

I cut myself out of my flashbacks as I saw him pull his lanky frame from the driver's seat. He was even more graceful than I remembered, if only for the fact that I saw his movements more clearly now. He was scanning the parking lot with his x-ray eyes, and my stomach jumped into my throat at the thought that he may have been searching for me.

I hastened my footsteps from my hiding place behind a rather large football player who was attempting to make googley-eyes at me. I would not let Edward find me. Our meeting had to be on my own terms. He would not force himself on me. I would not allow it. I had to believe that I would not fall to pieces at his feet when we finally spoke; which was an inevitability.

I followed the stream of traffic into the school building, my friends following behind me, questions written all over their faces, and insanity theories taking flight in their brains. I could not, and would not, ever be able to explain this to them.

I lasted a total of four hours. Four hours without seeing him. I had thought of him for the entire 240 minutes since I had seen him. His scent was burned into the receptors in my nostrils, burned into the pit of my stomach where acid had once sat, and burned into my mind as the single most beautiful thing to ever touch me. But the sight of him had been much worse.

When I reached the cafeteria at mid-day, I was ready to be engulfed in the monotony of the teenage mind. I wanted to hear about Blair's date with Sam over the weekend, I wanted to hear about the guy behind the cash register at the movie theater who had shamelessly flirted with her despite her date's presence, I wanted to hear about the latest updates for the winter formal, I wanted to hear about the latest exposé in the school newspaper about Speedo-stuffing on the swim team, and I wanted to hear about the way that Hailey was being completely blown off by her partner in biology despite her signature hair-flippy-thing.

But life could never be that simple for me. Life hated me. God was punishing me for all my wrongdoings over the past fifty years. He had seen each moment of weakness, each sin, and each blasphemous statement of exasperation.

My friends were each talking, in their own way, of the Cullen's. I let Blair, Hailey, and Ava explain the new students to me without interruption. I knew everything that they could possibly tell me, but I listened anyways. They told me the story of the doctor and his wife, and their five adoptive children. It seemed like lines pulled directly out of my past. I could hear Jessica Stanley's voice echoing in my head as Blair spoke. The girls told me about the Cullen boys' "dreaminess", impeccable hair, powerful bodies, impeccable fashion sense, and kissable lips.

The boys beside them spoke in excruciating detail of their attraction to the two girls. I had never heard such an itemized list of lustful qualities. I had always known that Alice and Rosalie were beautiful; it had been the first thing that I myself had noticed about them, after all. But I had never considered that an indifferent sneer could ever be considered an aphrodisiac, as Liam had described it.

I could feel my stomach lurch in both disgust and protectiveness for the family. I wanted to pick up my tray and speed to the library where I could loose myself in a novel. I didn't want to listen to them describe them anymore. I just wanted to sort out my own thoughts of them.

But instead of fleeing, I simply smirked to myself. I thought of just how kissable Edward's lips had been. These girls would squeal in delight if they heard the confirmation to their assumptions. I had always loved the way his lips felt against mine. They were cold, controlled, but passionate. He had pushed every single one of his boundaries when we would kiss. He would give me the closeness that I craved, but with the caution that was necessary.

"Oh my gosh, look, here they come." Hailey placed a hand over Blair's forearm, her voice a soft and excited whisper as she watched the Cullen's progress through the cafeteria with glazed eyes.

I froze. I had forgotten this part. All day I had been craving the freedom that the hectic, bustling cafeteria would give me. I had been hoping for the numbness that mindless teenage chatter could bring… but I had stupidly forgotten that it would be the point where I would be forced to be around them. There was no hiding anymore.

I swear that they did it on purpose. As the doors to the cafeteria opened up from the quad, everybody and everything in the roomed seemed to silence and freeze to look in their direction. I watched with exasperating and annoyance as they entered the room in their pairs, their bodies sleek and controlled in a way that made it seem as if they were moving in slow motion.

Edward was in the middle of the group of his siblings. He seemed uninterested by anyone around him, and his eyes flitted about the room in the same way they had that morning. And this time I knew that he was searching for me.

And then he spotted me.

From then on, I only vaguely recognized that his siblings were with him; Alice was at Edward's side, clutching to his forearm and standing on her tip-toes to see why he had suddenly stilled in his search, Jasper behind her, the pained expression I remembered from the days of our education at Forks High School seeming to be long forgotten. Emmett and Rosalie were rapped in their own world, their arms tangled around each other's bodies, and talking heatedly in low whispers.

Jasper caught Edward's attention, and I was given the chance to study him from afar. I tried to hear what they were saying, but the buzz of the students separating us made it impossible.

Complete and overpowering joy rippled through me after finally seeing him. But fear and anxiety still persisted. I was shaking with the bottled-up emotion of it. He could still make me as giddy as a schoolgirl. He still had that power over me. I was resentful of that power. I didn't want him to hold any supernatural sovereignty over me the way he had before when I did everything he said, or wanted, without question or hesitation, I did not want it to be his puppet. But I couldn't stop the joy bubbling in my stomach and chest, threatening to spill over onto the cracked linoleum floor and engulf me from my feet upwards.

I wanted to just run to him and throw my arms around him, locking him in my embrace and make him understand that I would never ever let him go ever again. He would never be able to leave me again. I would not let him.

But if it were truly him, he would already know how I felt. Jasper would know first, he would sense every emotion, however conflicted, that flitted through my body, meaning Edward would know by association. Edward couldn't read me, but he most definitely _could_ read Jasper. No matter what, he would know of the pleasure I had at being so near to him again, however treacherous those thoughts were to me and my frazzled emotions.

I couldn't stop myself from studying him the same way I had that first day in the cafeteria. He was identical to my memories in every way except for his… mass? It was the only word I could think of to describe it. He looked so easily touchable from this angle. He looked far less foreboding. I wanted to run the pads of my fingers along his jaw line and experience just how his skin would feel now that my body was as solidly granite as his. I felt the need to reach out, even from this distance, and touch him. I could practically feel him, every part of him; the way he would stroke my hair and hum to me as I fell asleep, the silkiness of his hair, his hard body against mine as I slept, and the soft cotton of his shirt when I clutched it and pulled him closer. And as if he had felt my eyes inspecting him, as if he had felt every single one of my memories assault him, he turned away from his silent discussion with Jasper, and turned towards me again, our eyes meeting.

His eyes locked on mine, and I was shocked. Students and faculty jumbled and blurred in groups of faceless people all around me. A jolt of the opposing forces of cold and heated electricity flickered through my body, making me weak at the knees. The earth shifted, the oceans parted, the sun blacked out, lions roared, dogs howled, horns blared, hurricanes formed, tornadoes touched down, fireworks exploded, babies were born, wedding bells chimed, heart monitors skipped back to life, and high school sweethearts were meeting for the first time as toddlers in their play-pens; and everything in that moment was perfect. Every vein inside my body, all of the long-dry highways to my heart and brain, suddenly seemed to fill again. I felt like a glass filling with water, or lungs filling with air. It was so right, and so new, and so…

_Wrong._

My toes curled in anger at myself, my nails digging into my palms, and I bit onto my lower lip in a way that I hadn't in 50 years.

Only _he_ could do this to me.

And the hallucination theory was shot to hell.

* * *

**A.N.:** This chapter is named for the song by Simon & Garfunkel. Every chapter will be both named after a song and have lyrics at the introduction, both of which were inspirational and somehow connected to the plot.

A 'thank-you-kindly' to my amazing beta/muse **AdabellaCullen**. I want to send really cool Rob/Kellan/Jackson porn to her for her amazing support of both me _and_ this story after this chapter. She has officially reached muse/angel status. She pretty much came up with the end to this chapter, I was just the elaborator, as well as dealing with my insanity and insecurity. We had to have gone back and forth with about 12 e-mails for this chapter, and I will be eternally indebted to her. :)


	4. Hate I Really Don't Like You

_Never felt, so alone,  
__Walking in the darkness, to my home,__  
Payin' for the strength to know myself,__  
And to be my own,  
And I'm found, no,  
Believin' that you are that someone in the past that's dead and gone,  
I'm reminded with every risin',  
Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn  
Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn_

_Lookin' up at the purple sky,  
All I could pray for, was you to be mine,  
And Hopin' God doesn't look down on me,For wanting you to want me to give you everything,  
And I'm found,I know,  
Believin' that you are that someone in the past that's dead and gone,  
I'm reminded with every risin',  
Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn__  
Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn**  
-Sage and the Dills "Dawn"**_

"You've got to be _fucking_ kidding me." I said the words aloud, my attention snapping directly to the faux wood grain of the cafeteria table in front of me. I had been speaking to myself; speaking to my own traitorous mind. I knew where my errors lay. I knew of the treason I had just committed. I studied the swirls, turns, and creases of the laminate, the texture underneath my powerful fingertips feeling almost painfully smooth. I hated the perfection. It felt like a false advertisement of the tattered chip-board that lay beneath the polished exterior. It reminded me too much of my own falsity. I wished I could have tightened the grip of my knuckles. I wished I could have pulverized the pathetic excuse for wood into a pulp of wood chips and saw dust.

My words had been a discreet whisper, reminiscent of the hiss of a powerful rattlesnake when agitated and ready to attack. I doubted that even my closest neighbor would have heard me. But I knew that Edward would have.

His eyes were still fused to my profile, but as his presence sunk into my brain, I realized my stupidity. I realized it with a blinding rage aimed squarely at myself. How could I have been so foolish as to let my heart and mind slip so easily back into the mold my seventeen-year-old self had of Edward Cullen? How could I let myself look at him, or even think of him, with the adoration he had rebuffed? How could I let myself be filled, body and soul, by his presence or the way he looked at me? How could I let his eyes, the ones that now mirrored my own in color, but that held depths and mysteries that I could never understand, ensnare me into submission? Trapping me like the animals that we hunted. Could I be that masochistic? Did I miss that pain? The pain he had caused me. Did I miss the way the hole he had left felt? Or did I wish it back just to prove that I truly was still alive?

I knew that I would never be able to survive if we were to fall back into the love that I remembered. I _knew_ that, but I had let my world shift so easily in that moment. I had let my world orbit around him again for those few seconds. It had made everything within me feel as if it were suddenly pieced back together. And I was ashamed of it.

I had not been the kind of girl for fifty years. I had not let my world revolve around anyone but myself. I had been utterly and completely selfish. And liked it. I liked knowing that I could be superficially happy about inconsequential things in my life. I liked knowing that I lived for no one but myself. My actions only affected me, and my mistakes _only_ affected _me_.

And I would never be that other girl again.

I couldn't be her again. It had been too hard the first time. It had been too hard to maintain it, and then to repair it.

But this was fucking déjà vu. I had to admit that. There was something so eerily familiar, easily recognizable, about seeing Edward Cullen from across a crowded cafeteria. I felt as though I could turn to my right and see a sixteen-year-old Jessica Stanley leaning towards me, ready to impart to me her wisdom of the Cullen family. I could almost hear her low voice in my ear, _"That's Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife."_

I had to look to be sure that she really wasn't there. She wasn't, of course, and I was met with only a questioning glance from Ava. She had been the only one of my friends to notice my outwardly peculiar behavior. She had always been the most readily observant, and I felt like screaming at her for this fact. She should not have seen that. She should have been as clueless as everyone else. It surely would have made my life a bit simpler. I avoided eye contact with her, unwilling to answer any of the questions that I would see in her irises.

But in my attempt to escape Ava's tawny eyes, curiosity got the better of me, and I turned my head a few fractions of centimeters to my right, almost without realizing that I had done it, and caught the shimmer of his iridescent skin in the florescent lighting. I snapped my head back toward my untouched lunch tray, examining my powdered mashed potatoes with a scientific intensity. Vague references to his presence were the only kind that I could handle. I couldn't look at him without either a chill or an electric heat running through my body, just as humans could not look directly into the sun without being blinded. I shifted my glare from my sad excuse for a carbohydrate, to my apple as I tried to pull myself back into reality. I needed to have my wits about me. I had to act _normal_, however difficult it may be.

"I wonder if he'd let me touch his hair. Just run my fingers through it." Blair's voice was light and giddy, full of youthful naivety, teenage infatuation, and the indescribable part of a human being that makes the heart flutter and a smile come to their face without proper understanding or reason. Her heart was pitter-pattering to the soft beat of a steel drum, and her finger nails tapped delicately on the table in excitement.

But it made something inside me snap. I hated her in that moment. I hated my _best friend_. I hated that she thought of Edward like that. I hated that she had every right to. And I hated that she could ogle him without her heart caving in on itself. I had to reign in every primal part of me that wanted to kill her in that moment. I wanted her freedom, the freedom that I desired so much, to disappear. I wanted to give her my pain, let her see what it was truly like to have a problem in her life that was unconnected to the fact that the dress she ordered online ended up being _peach_ instead of apricot. Who the hell really cared about these food-related colors anyway? Who came up with them? Why were they so important? And what exactly was the difference between the colors of peach and apricot? I wanted her to understand that these would most likely be the best years of her life, and that she was wasting them being who she was.

But I simply clenched my jaw, my teeth fighting a loosing battle against one another for dominance, and looked down into my lap. I released my grip on the table, and let my hands fall into my line of vision, my fingers tangling with each other. My steel nails dug into the marble of my skin, and it felt like the kind of glorious release that only a drug could give you. I sighed, releasing the stale breath that had been trapped inside my lungs, and then pulled in new, formaldehyde-pizza-smelling air.

It was a deep breath marred by the most glorious scent to ever grace the earth.

I went rigid, and my breathing became unsteady. I could feel him. I could feel him so near that I suspected he could have touched me if he wished to. I could smell him, and feel him, and sense him, and every nerve ending in my entire body stood at attention as a shock of electricity surged through the polluted air. I could hear the crackling and buzzing of the teenagers all around me, but it all sounded like the badly tuned radio on my old Chevy.

I stood, pushing my chair away from the table with the backs of my knees. My eyes were unseeing of my surroundings, and the only things that I recognized as being real was the electric charge. It was the only thing that I felt like I could touch without it falling to pieces, and the only thing that I could properly see without it blurring at the edges. It was both painful and delightful.

I vaguely noticed the excited and expectant looks of my friends, their hopes for some sort of contact with the object of their lust showing clearly on their faces even to my foggy mind. I wanted to scream at them for it. Couldn't they see how painful this was for me? How much I wanted to collapse into a ball and sob because of him? How much he could hurt them if he wished? Did they have no instincts for self-preservation? And I wasn't even talking about their physical well-being.

And then he spoke. It was a simple, two syllable word. A word I had heard a million times in my life, and a word that I was regularly addressed with. A word in which held everything that I was, and everything I wanted to live up to. A word I had been teased for when I lived in Italy for five years, and a word that was the heart of too many pick-up lines to count. But falling from his lips, it was like a soft, romantic symphony written especially for me. It was like hearing him play my lullaby again. "Bella." But, you see, he did not, could not, feel the tenderness and warmth that came with that word. He could not have felt the same joy and pain that I did. My name falling from his lips was neither a relief nor a torture to him. It was a simple name. It was nothing but a name. Nothing but the name that my mother had pulled from a trashy bodice-ripping romance novel she had found in a supermarket.

I couldn't listen to anything else he might have had to say. I couldn't listen to another syllable of his easy and melodic voice. And I most certainly couldn't let the way he said my name make my heart melt into a puddle of goo. I could feel the burning within the canals of my ears as my name slipped so easily from between his lips, and all I felt was the need to clutch at my chest. Somehow find a pressure-point in my broken and battered heart. My hand twitched to find the cavity where my heart had once thundered. I wanted to release the pain, make it somehow decompress from its violent bubbling inside my body.

I turned, and I found his eyes instantly. It was odd to find that his eyes were such a genuine reflection of my own. I felt like I was staring too long into a mirror. But it was also blindingly obvious that his yes were not mine. They were exactly as I had remembered them; full of wisdom, trepidation, and caring. They had the unmistakable qualities of being all knowing, but knowing absolutely nothing at the same time. He knew all that it was possible to know academically, he knew the ins-and-outs of a human mind as if it were a child's book with too many pictures, and he understood the way the world worked with a certainty that was as believable as his beauty. But he did not know what to say to me in that moment. He had absolutely no clue what he was meant to do, or what would make it easier for either of us.

And I hated that he could see the torment that he was causing me. I knew that he could read me. He had been forced to learn how. He knew how to read in my eyes the things that he could never learn from my mind or my mouth. I doubted he would ever forget how. And he proved it in that moment. The way his eyes permeated every last defense that I had ever had, and telepathically apologized for everything he had ever done to me, I saw the way that he could still affect me.

So I rolled my eyes. I didn't actually mean to, or want to. It was just a knee-jerk reaction. I was aggravated and annoyed, and rolling my eyes was the way I had learnt to portray that. It was an unfortunate side effect of living my entire life as a teenager. "No." I said petulantly, my usually distinguished voice replaced with that of the small, impressionable, innocent, but stubborn teenager that he would remember.

And I moved my chair out of the way, pushing myself into the small amount of space separating us. I tucked my chair underneath of the table, and then swept silently and determinedly past him, being very careful to not brush my squared shoulders against him.

I had a satisfied smile on my face as I walked across the cafeteria. I was pleased with myself. I think it would have been impossible to have a better first interaction with Edward Cullen. What could I possibly say to him? What could he possibly say to me that wouldn't end in me rolling around in the fetal position of the floor? So I did the only thing that seemed at all intelligent. I walked away and let the words he had planned, the ones that would no-doubt be very similar to the last he had spoken to me, sink away into the quick-sand of his mind.

Whispers of "_What the hell is she doing now?_" and "_Is she completely insane?_" floated to my ears as I rose from my seat and began a slow, deliberate walk towards the food line. I stared purposefully in front of me, towards them, but I was careful to place each footstep firmly in front of the last. My jaw was set, and my fingernails scraped at the fabric of my jeans at my outer thighs. I was not completely sure of what I planned to do. There was absolutely no thought running through my brain as I walked. My skull had become an empty shell of air, the sound of seagulls and the smell of freesias mingling within the cavernous space like lint in the air. It seemed unimportant, though. I didn't need a plan. Plans seemed to fall through anyways. If I over thought the situation, I would only be disappointed. If I planned every detail, every word, then I would only be disappointed at the disconnected jumble of plans that would actually come to reality.

"Thank God!" I heard Alice's bell-like voice exclaim. And then she was flying at me, her arms outstretched and demanding. I took the place between her beckoning limbs, and my arms snaked around her delicate neck. Alice tightened her grip around my body, her immeasurable strength strangling the organs within my abdomen. "He wouldn't let us come near you!" She wailed, her voice like that of a petulant child being told that she was not to have a cookie before dinner. "It was torture! I thought I was going to go insane!" Alice's soft, tinkling voice flitted around the sounds of the scraping tables and twittering gossip, and I felt myself release my breath in contentment. It was like coming home. Her voice, her hug, her words, they all reassured me that I had made the right move in approaching them.

"Why would he tell you to stay away from me?" I asked with a volatile mixture of anger, frustration, and hurt. He had no right to tell them to stay away from me.

"I don't know!" She squealed in a horrifyingly fast and high pitched voice full of frustration and childish exuberance. "At first he said that you needed to decide if you wanted to talk to us," she paused, and pulled me down into another hug before she spoke again. "And then I thought that he just wanted to talk to you first, but then he didn't. But this makes it so much simpler!" And she pulled on my neck for yet another strangling embrace. She released me with one last tight squeeze.

When I looked up from the small, excitable friend that I had missed so much, I was shocked to find Rosalie as the person following the closest behind Alice in my welcoming party. "Hi, Rosalie," I said tentatively, afraid to look up into her face without the shield of my fringe partially shielding me from her potential hatred.

She was not as shockingly beautiful as I remembered. None of them were. Time and company had hardened my sense of beauty. Clothilde had been beautiful the way that Rosalie was, and I had spent too much time with her for beauty to ever intimidate me that way again. It seemed normal now, in an odd way.

But the small smile spread across Rose's face was what shocked me into action, pulling her into a hug as well. It was all the provocation I needed to thank her for what she had done for me, the sacrifices she had made and lies she had told in order to protect me. I was shocked at how tightly she reciprocated the hug.

I remembered the last time I had seen Rosalie. It was easy to remember everything about that day, seven years ago. It was the last time I had seen the Cullen family. Their smiling faces would be forever burned into the insides of my eyelids. But Rosalie had been the only one to _see me_. It was an overcast day in London; the sun had been attempting to peak out from behind dreary gray clouds, and only a prayer kept the sun from casting its bright yellow glow toward the ground. The chapel had been cast in a bronze glow, and people on the streets stopped to stare at the extraordinary sight.

_The engagement announcement had appeared in a local newspaper only a few days after I arrived in England. It was a small announcement, accompanied by an even smaller picture, but it was enough to rip a very large hole in my chest that had previously only been mended with kindergarten glue._

_**The Cullen family of Barnet, North London, would like to proudly announce the engagement of their daughter, Mary Alice, 22, to her boyfriend of 6 years, Jasper Whitlock Hale, 23. Mr. Hale is a lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, and Miss Cullen has recently graduated from Goldsmith's College studying fashion. The wedding is being planned for the early summer of next year, and is tentatively set for the 20**__**th**__** of June 2046 at St Botolph's Church, Aldgate. The bride expressed her excitement in this statement: "I'm ecstatic to finally be marrying Jasper. If feels as if we've waited a hundred years for this."**_

_I kept the article buried in a stack of books on my desk. It sat between a tattered and torn copy of Romeo & Juliet and a ragged copy of Wuthering Heights, Jasper and Alice's beautiful smiling faces smothered by the pages of the classic novels. _

_I had told myself that I would stay as far away from the chapel as possible on the day of their wedding. I knew that my heart would explode in pain if I were to be anywhere near the festivities. I knew that I couldn't emotionally handle being anywhere near __**them**__. Not so soon after leaving Clothilde. _

_But I just couldn't keep myself away. I had an indescribable magnetism to the place. I had left my expensive English boarding school where I was a Sixth Form student late on Friday afternoon, making hurried excuses of a sick aunt and hospital stays in London. I had learned long before of the easiest lies to get away with, and sickness was usually at the top of the list._

_I found an expensive luxury hotel near Covent Garden, and stayed locked in the bedroom all night contemplating my options. I had absolutely no one to talk to in this time when I felt like so many things should be confessed. I needed to tell someone, anyone, what was going on in my head. But the days when I had a built-in companion were gone. I had given them up. _

_I didn't know anyone within the city to confide in. I knew other vampires in London, kind and generous ones that, though they did not believe in my choice of diet, still managed to be extremely compassionate and accepting of me. But all of those people would know the situation too well. Any vampire in the city would also know the Cullen's, and I would sacrifice everything for them to never know of me. I never wanted them to know what I had become. _

_They would never understand my mistakes._

_I hid inside the coffee shop across the street as the guests arrived. There was no more than 50 of them, and I could pick out familiar faces as they moved through the small crowd; Esme in her pale yellow mother-of-the-bride dress, Rosalie in a fashionable red bridesmaids' dress, Emmett looking debonair in a simple charcoal gray suit, sans tie, and Kate Denali in a tea-length dress that I recognized from Chanel's latest runway collection._

_When Carlisle and Alice had arrived outside the church in their chauffer-driven car, my heart almost restarted just so I could feel the pain of it stopping again. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, Alice being escorted into the church by her father. I knew that if it were possible, I would have been bawling. _

_Alice was dressed to the nines, her shortly cut hair was extended to the nape of her neck since the last time I had seen her, and a dazzling smile was played out across on her face. Her pixie-like features hadn't changed at all in 41 years, but I don't know why I had expected them to. She wore a simple but elegant empire-waisted gown of silk and lace, and she clung to Carlisle's arm as if it were the only thing connecting her to this life. _

_She looked so happy._

_It made my heart ache. But for those two hours that I sat in my seat across from the church, watching the guests arrive, waiting for the service to end, and then watching the happy family and friends mill about, I let myself imagine that I was part of it. I imagined myself wearing a dress identical to Rosalie's and marching up the isle of the chapel as a bridesmaid. I imagined helping Alice into her dress that morning, and gasping with her in attempts at tears in our overwhelming joy. I saw myself grasping to Edward's arm the way that Rosalie did to Emmett as they stood in front of the church celebrating the wedding of their sister._

_I watched as Alice and Jasper came out of the chapel, holding tight to one another and sharing a chaste kiss on the steps to the cheers of their guests. _

_I looked away hastily when I saw a flash of bronze hair. I couldn't see him. I knew he was there, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, but I could __**not**__ see him. I could deal with the electrically charged air around me just as long I didn't have to look into his eyes or see his face._

_I was watching carefully as Rose fiddled with her husband's crisp white collar, smiling and pressing a kiss to his cheek. I smiled at the loving gesture, transfixed by the family that I once wanted so badly to be a part of, and circled my index finger around the rim of my coffee cup. _

_And then she turned. _

_She must have felt that someone was staring at her, no matter how often it happened to her. It was an instantaneous connection between our eyes. She stared at me, releasing a ragged breath, and taking in everything of my appearance from my hair slung up in an elegant bun atop my head, the simple blue sundress I wore in the summer heat, and the color of my changed eyes. _

_I didn't even have time to panic. I should have run or screamed, or even hidden behind one of the other patrons at the small shop; but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was transfixed; frozen inside the tunnel or our gaze._

_I could see the pain in Rosalie's flawless face. She understood. She knew what I was._

_She looked away from me for only a moment, turning to Emmett, patting his chest in a loving way, and I feared that she was telling him where I was. I looked fearfully around the small cafe, searching for any place to hide or escape. _

_But when I looked back up, she was staring back at me, making her way through the crowd of well-wishers as if she were going to escape her party to come towards me. I quickly shook my head, the fear flowing from my every pore. She couldn't come over to me. She couldn't acknowledge my presence any more than she already had. _

_She looked into my eyes, trying to silently communicate with me, though it was difficult to understand exactly what she was trying to convey; we had never had a friendly relationship, the kind that would be able to translate silence into words. But I could tell that she was asking me if I was sure. She would not force herself upon me. Not on Alice's day._

_I closed my eyes and pursed my lips against the stinging I felt from behind my eyelids, and nodded. Only one tear would have made me feel better. One tear would have sufficed. One tear could have sedated me, anaesthetize me at least a little bit. One tear could have freed all of my sadness and longing. But it never came._

_Instead of crying I pulled myself up from my chair, flagged down my waiter, picking up the book that I had brought with me, and hastened out of the shop. I took the side door so that I could not be seen by any other members of the Cullen family, and sped my walking down the street to where my car was parked, all the while refusing to breathe in case their scent were to touch me._

_I only allowed myself one last look as I sped away. The last thing I saw was the entire family gathered on the steps, posing for a photo. _

_Including __**him**__._

She spoke softly in my ear, the soft hiss of her speeded voice even too low for the other vampires in the immediate vicinity to hear. "I tried to find you. I've been searching everywhere." And, if it were possible, she held me even tighter, her marble skin tight and unyielding against my back. It was a motherly, sisterly, cousin, aunt, grandmother, neighbor, and life-long-friend hug. It was the kind of hug that meets you at airports after long absences. The kind of hug that is usually back-dropped by happy soft-rock songs in movies. The kind of hug that feels like coming home. It was acceptance and love; the two things I had always wanted from Rosalie.

"Thank you Rose." I spoke at a natural tone, one that even the humans around could understand, and I looked into her amber eyes with true happiness, showing her exactly how much I believed and truly thanked her for her caring. Thanked her for what her acceptance meant. The acceptance that I had wanted so badly, but no longer needed.

But Emmett scooped in and interrupted the sisterly bonding of that moment. He wrapped me up into his arms from behind in the kind of hug that only he could give, bone-crushing and filled with his wracking laughter, and I forgot for a moment about Edward Cullen, Rosalie Hale, and every other person, dead or alive, that was around. I let Emmett squeeze me tight, his large arms like tree trunks molding into an odd sort of belt around my waist. He squeezed, lifting me off of my feet, then setting me down and releasing, and then did it again, each time squeezing tighter, testing the limits of how much I could take. I laughed heartily, a full belly-laugh that bubbled through my entire body, tinkling like bells and clanging like cymbals at the same time.

When he stepped away from me, tousling my hair, I scowled, pushing his shoulder teasingly, but in a manner that made him realize my strength. His smile widened, and he pulled me into another tight hug. "Right on, Bella."

And then Jasper hugged me, too. He was not as overly enthusiastic as Alice or Emmett, and he did not seem as relieved or sentimental as Rosalie, but it was his own kind of happiness. He was still glad to see me. I couldn't tell if it was because it had made Alice so happy, or if it was because he was genuinely glad to see me.

"I'm glad to see you Bella," he finally confirmed with a slight grin as he released me. And it was all I needed. I had my family back. Alice grinned from ear to ear, Rose wore a smug and satisfied smirk, Emmett looked like he had a juicy secret that he couldn't keep for long as he mindlessly tapped his foot on the speckled linoleum, and Jasper looked like he might have taken a hit before coming to school, he was so mellow.

And Edward was nowhere to be seen. It was both disconcerting and relieving. It made the group gathering feel almost hallow. Like the entire body was there, but not the head. The head, of course, made everything seem more whole, more cohesive. And as Alice paid for her lunch and pulled me towards their lunch table, I felt myself longing for the head. It was as much a part of the body as any other part, if not more, and it deserved to be there.

But in this case the head was not needed. Nothing needed to be seen or heard, and the lack of those senses made the rest of the body feel more at ease. If the head had been there, everything would have been over-thought. Having a brain connected to this would have made everything worse.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This chapter is named after the song by The Plain White T's. Very appropriate I think. A little bit of trying to convince yourself to hate someone. I've done it a lot, actually.

And that brings me around to the flashback section of this chapter. Flashbacks will be prominent in this story. I have lots of psychological break-downs in Bella's past that I feel need to be addressed. I think that if she were in the same frame of mind that she had in Twilight (or the beginning of New Moon), she would never hesitate to go back to Edward, as she did towards the end of NM. In my world it is not so simple. Bella is not the same person she was in Twilight or New Moon. She lived without Edward for so long, she doesn't feel like she _needs_ him anymore. She wants him, but she doesn't need him. It's the _want_ that puts her consciousness in such distress, not the need.

And, finally, I'm really sorry that it took me so long to get this out, but I guess reality calls sometimes. Wish me luck on my second round of SATs, Literature, US History, and World History which I did on June 6. And I just got my scores back from my regular SATs, and they sort of sucked, and that's why this took so long. But I actually have most of the next chapter completed, and I don't expect it to take much longer. I now have a mostly-clear outline of how this story will progress, and I doubt that it will exceed 12 or 13 chapters. But, y'see, in the process of writing this story, I realized why I stayed away from FF for so long. Because I don't have time to update, and then I feel guilty. When I feel guilty, I do it, and then I slack on the things that I should be doing. Vicious cycle.

And finally, but very importantly, mucho-gracias to me Beta, **AdabellaCullen**. The Amazing Alicia.

Muchos Gracias y Buenos Noches Chicas!


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